It's not pleasant. Sometimes intense enough that I'm in a state of shock through much of the next day. Most of the pain I remember has been in the form of lucid nightmares. Usually snake bites, gun shots, knives, etc. Almost never from environmental realities like hot surfaces, crashes, or falls.

Self-aware nightmares are way more terrifying than the regular variety, a lucid dream where I sometimes can't take control. I usually try to wake myself immediately, but sometimes this leads to repeated false awakenings. The worst I remember is 5 false awakenings before waking up for real.

I can't agree with you enough in everything you've said. I taught myself how to lucid dream in 2011. I used a technique where I made a habit of checking reality through the day every day. Eventually the habit became ingrained enough that I started remembering to check even during dreams, triggering a realization that I was actually dreaming and initiating a lucid dream.

It is exactly as you described. Nobody can ever understand it until they experience it. Comparing it to the matrix might do it a little justice. But there are limitations -- waking up, falling back into non-lucidity, false awakenings and so on.

The first lucid dream I had was glorious. I was dreaming about being on a very tall grey building with overcast skies, on a wooden deck protruding from the side of the building. I became lucid and commanded the sky to crack with lightning and it did. I flew upward and created a swirl of clouds and was generally having an amazing time. This all was as if it were completely real. Then, too excited, I woke up. But it was a terrifying false awakening where a black figure sprinted toward me and attacked me. Then I woke up for real, absolutely terrified. It was so scary that I decided not to lucid dream anymore. But with recounting all of this, and thinking about it for the first time again, I think I might start doing it again.

Its a LOT like the matrix. Perception of your ability to alter reality makes reality altering possible, with the only limitation being your own faith in the extent reality can be altered. Very meta.

I never consciously do reality checks, but I'm a very inquisitive and skeptical person. Easily distracted by cracks in the wall type.

I wouldn't let one bad experience stop you from lucid dreaming :( . I might be an outlier, but my experiences have been overwhelmingly amazing. Yes, I still have nightmares are the lucid ones are waaayyy worse. But lucid dreaming is such a great experience I would never wish it away

The faith part is hard. When I've managed to be lucid flying is a skill that is hard to master. I get a lot of big hops but can't seem to actually fly.

Yeesh, yeah, now you mention it I've had those exact same symptoms when trying to awaken from a negative lucid dream: A bunch of false awakenings in a row. I wonder how linked those things are... I rarely have false awakenings without having been lucid before.

same, I can't think of a single false awakening outside of trying to end a lucid nightmare. Maybe the same "your wish is my command" type control you get over reality perception is a double edge sword. You want to be awake so you "wake up" into a fresh dream world, because your mind has no way to take you to reality. Kinda terrifying.

I’ve had the false awakenings bit - that realization in dream can be frightening, mostly because it makes me panic that I’m dying - when I can’t seem to shake myself out of it.

I've only experienced false awakenings a few times, but I like them. I do a reality check every time I wake up (made it a habit) so it's a free lucid dream.

>I've experienced all kinds of things emotionally - embarrassment, fear, anxiety. But never physical pain

I am the same, I've never felt any pain in a dream, extreme fear is the strongest negative emotion or feeling I've ever experienced, but that usually wakes me up and ends the dream.

I am jealous! Pretty much any time I experience a nightmare, it's a dog biting me, or I'm being stabbed, or some wild animals are attacking me, and there's almost always vivid and terrible pain. It goes away the moment I wake up, but I cannot for the life of me control it in my dreams, regardless of if I'm lucid or not.

Interesting how we're all wired differently!

It's one of those weird personal secrets, things that never come up. I realized years ago that lucid dreamers are fairly rare, and most of those that have had lucid dreams don't have many.

It makes for a really awkward discussion most of the time. And it's impossible to explain well to somebody that hasn't experienced it.

Might be generics or wiring, or just figuring out how to recognize dreams, who knows. Its real weird that some people can have this otherworldly incredible experience with no drugs, and yet most of the population never experiences it. I'm lucky I guess, but to me its normal